Sunday, December 4, 2011

The wind is blowin hard and I’m inside by the fire. Still recovering from a great winemakers dinner at Ladera last night. Chef made quite a menu of fresh, real food of the highest quality and originality. Great company with some great new and old friends. Frisby wines and Josh Frisby himself were there with a really fresh Chardonnay and a couple deep Cabs that worked.

Today I received the coolest package I have seen in awhile. A big box of seeds arrived at San Clemente BeachFire but I hadn’t ordered any from Seeds of Change that I hadn’t already received. But there was a box with 25 great seed packs that most all will work stupendously for the current winter planting I am now doing. Looking further I found an envelope I assumed was a receipt and I started to think I may be annoyed that they sent me seeds I hadn’t ordered or they repeated an old order. Damn them evil capitalist seed merchants! I tore into that envelope to see what the hell they charged me this time. Holy moly. There was a brilliant letter from the Will Righeimer President of Seeds of Change:”America’s largest Organic Seed Supplier”. I am now their pro bono spokesperson. He sent out enough complimentary seed for half the garden this winter with the perfect letter scanned below. This guy and his team are good. I am impressed. He didn’t know that I had already been ordering from SeedsofChange.com but he still stepped up. I am also impressed by how his team catches this. I imagine he has a Google Alert set up to catch people like me blogging and mentioning their name or maybe he is friends with the garden nymphs that visit my dreams most every night these days. They follow through and send out a thank you.

Letter from Will Righeimer, President of Seed of Change to BeachFire owner Dave Donaldson!

I have to remember that style of ease as it is so easy to tighten up and not want to spend the time or money to get out and give it away. We are back doing more community events like the Assistance League’s South OC home tour this Sunday – giving it away to the ladies – if you know what I mean…Actually some men will be dragged along with their spouses. In fact I wouldn’t doubt there might be some men dressed in drag. Anyway, what the hell does this have to do with gardening? I don’t know. Actually I do know – we’ll be serving fresh tomato bisque made with tomatoes from the garden.

I’ve been replanting more plots the last couple days. Spent eight straight hours on Sunday. Planted lots of seed. Many lettuces, lots of herbs, lots o onions, peas, more carrots and other stuff I can’t remember because of the red wine from last night. Maybe I should just plant a bunch of wine and beer grapes. We could water it with rainwater and fertilize with compost and produce fully off the grid Corona Light and La Crema Chardonnay and no one would know. Now we are talking!

Here’s a fun one. Earlier tonight I arrived home and found a couple chickens, the cochins exactly, in the garage hiding from the wind. I chased those suckers right out. A bit later I invited Ruby into the house from the garage and as she ran in her front paw landed squarely on a toxic yet fresh, black chicken shit that both tattooed its denseness into the kitchen tile and living room carpet as it also flew from the foot to the walls and beyond.

Last night Isabel brought the dog bowls in from outside and as she was filling them she noticed a stray nugget of escaped food. She quickly picked it up and put it into one of the bowls where it quickly expanded into a large black widow spider! She is a true spider tamer.

The wind is still howling. Probably blew 60 mph last night. Not the worst ever. I found a few dozen avocados and some more grapefruit on the ground but they might work out just great in the end. See you later…